


will you forgive my soul

by fullmetallizard



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Royai - Freeform, an exploration of guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29831448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullmetallizard/pseuds/fullmetallizard
Summary: She thought, suddenly and unexpectedly, of her mother. Some nights, she could swear she could hear the fuzzy half-remembered notes of the hymns her mother used to sing.Had her mother believed her life was predetermined? That Riza’s was? Did she think a god had planned for her to die just as her daughter left toddlerhood behind? Would she have worshipped that god anyways?
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	will you forgive my soul

**Author's Note:**

> I very much do not own fma.

The images of the nightmare, garish reds and dirty greys, evaporated the moment she opened her eyes but the effects on her body were slow to leave.

The scar tissue on her neck, long-healed, burned and screamed like it was fresh; her hands were trembling and cold, unaware that blood flowed through them freely and steadily.

Riza squeezed her eyes shut, taking a few shuddering breaths. She turned in the bed, pressing herself against Roy’s sleeping body.

His breaths were slow and even and she tried her best to get her own to match the rhythm. She pressed a kiss to his shoulder blade and felt the smallest burst of relief break its way through the heavy clouds of leftover fear that had found their place in her middle.

Her dream may have been sharp and unforgiving but Roy’s seemed to be softer, sweeter.

She laid the side of her cheek against the warm spot between his shoulder blades and willed the tattoo to stop stinging, for her throat to realized it was closed and safe.

Roy mumbled in his sleep beside her, his hand blindly fumbling, crumpling and uncrumpling the blanket loosely draped over the both of them.

She shifted herself to lean forward and lace her fingers with his searching ones and he stilled again, the muscles loosening as he fell back into his dreams.

Riza laid there, calmed by his soft breathing, enjoying the cool breeze that occasionally whispered over her skin from the cracked window across the room.

Despite the nightmare, she felt more at peace than she had in weeks.

The voice in the back of her mind was quick to remind her she didn’t deserve to.

She had no argument to give the little voice. It was a fact that she was acutely aware of.

There was no shortage of things for Riza to guilty for. Her list of regrets was extensive and ever-accumulating and she kept track of the grievances quietly. She accepted the nightmares, the moments when panic crouched firmly atop her chest and dug its icy fingers into her neck. She accepted the moments where haggardness overtook Roy’s face, his eyes years and miles away.

She knew she had no right to complain about them, she could only move through them.

Her regrets and failings stained everything she touched, leaving all of her plans and decisions inky and slick.

Even her desire to mend the things she’d helped destroy was ink splattered with her selfish need to repent, to find some sort of relief from the oppressive and ever-present feeling that she was damned before she’d even died.

She shook her head, pulling the blanket higher over and her shoulder, tucking it under her chin. She thought, suddenly and unexpectedly, of her mother. Some nights, she could swear she could hear the fuzzy half-remembered notes of the hymns her mother used to sing.

Had her mother believed her life was predetermined? That Riza’s was? Did she think a god had planned for her to die just as her daughter left toddlerhood behind? Would she have worshipped that god anyways?

Riza didn’t. Or couldn’t. When boiled down to their source, her regrets had only one: Riza’s own doing. She wouldn’t accept that there was a plan for her life all along and that it consisted of her being a destroyer, a taker of life.

Riza blinked tears away, unsure of when exactly they’d formed, and let go of Roy’s hand. She used her newly freed fingers to trace the scars that littered the skin of his back. She knew most of them.

He twitched at her touch and she drew her hand back. He slowly turned onto his other side; the movements clumsy from the weight of the sleep he hadn’t fully woken from.

He reached out and she leaned into his arms, resting her cheek on his chest, feeling the tears flow faster, stinging the backs of her eyes.

Riza was not a stranger to guilt. As she listened to the familiar thudding of Roy’s heart she wondered if this should be on the list. It was perhaps her most self-serving and greedy crime, but alone in the dark with him, she couldn’t bring herself to feel shame for it.

A small sob shuddered its way out of her chest and she hoped it wouldn’t wake him.

She wondered how things could have been different, cracking a door in her soul she usually left shut to stifle the pain of the ifs.

 _What if?_ What if when she found him in the desert, both their eyes half dead, the skin on the bridge of his nose burnt pink from the sun, she hadn’t asked if he remembered her? It was a low blow and she knew it. What might have happened if she found him later, held him as tight as she could, and begged him not to die? She’d wanted to. She wanted to plead with him to leave the military behind once the sand soaked up the last of the blood.

 _What if?_ When he told her he was going to enlist, why had she sat there, nearly dying with the effort it took to keep her face as stony as possible? Why didn’t she grip his hand and tell him to stay? His dreams were honorable and she felt like a fool for letting his speeches tint her vision rosy. What if they left for somewhere new, gotten married, had a life free from this guilt?

 _What if?_ Why hadn’t she bundled their clothes into duffle bags and crept past her mad father’s closed bedroom door and woken him up, tell him her father had lost it, and asked him to run away with her. They were young but Roy was smart and she could work with her hands, knew plenty of odd jobs. _Let’s leave, we can become new people, run run run._

Riza was wracked with another sob. Her actions would stay with her until she died, but the times she didn’t act, didn’t beg, didn’t change the course…those were the things that weighed her down the most, the boulder on her chest she couldn’t push away.

Roy stirred again beside her, her cries pulling him out of that soft, sweet dream she wished she could jump into with him. “Hey,” he said, voice thick and sticky with sleep. “Hey,” he said again, soothing once he became aware enough to realize the crying was coming from her.

He gripped her tighter in his arms, lifting himself to look at her. He cupped her cheek and wiped away at the tears with his thumb. His brow was furrowed, his dark eyes slightly cloudy with the last of the dream wakefulness chased away.

“Nightmare?” He asked after Riza didn’t speak.

She nodded. “It started that way,” she answered, her voice watery and small.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He whispered, brushing her hair back, tucking it behind her ear.

“I don’t know,” she answered, honestly. They’d talked their sins to death and back. She didn’t think she could handle a hope-filled speech at the moment.

“Just one of those nights?” He asked, stifling a yawn.

Riza closed her eyes and nodded.

“I’m here,” he said, resting his forehead against hers.

She nodded again, not trusting her voice to do much more than that.

They laid in silence, Roy caught somewhere between sleep and not. “Do you think I’m selfish for being here?” She asked, finally.

Roy pondered on it. “Do you think I’m selfish for inviting you over?”

She didn’t know how to answer.

“We can’t just lay down and die on the spot, Riza. We have to find some happiness where we can or our brains will break. We won’t be of use to anyone.”

She wanted, more than anything, to believe him.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he offered quietly, just above a whisper.

She pressed her lips against his forehead, breathing in the smell of him. She was lucky they were alive, that he was holding her, that he had always been and continued to be her home. She was lucky, whether it was deserved or not.

As he moved to kiss her, she welcomed it. When his lips moved to her neck, tracing the line of her scar, she sighed. She was undeserving, selfish. But in the dark with Roy curled around her, Riza felt something else, burning and achingly soft. With her skin against Roy’s, she felt blessed.

**Author's Note:**

> howdy, thanks for reading! remember to eat something and get some sleep tonight! comments are always appreciated!


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